


Soft, Burnt Sadness.

by fearless_seas



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, 19th Century CE RPF, America's First Daughter, American History RPF
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kissing, Lost Love, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: “Where were you when I needed you?” / “Please… I need you,”





	Soft, Burnt Sadness.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing as an anonymous requested prompt on Tumblr.

**“Where were you when I needed you?”** , the words fall off of her tongue as easy as they formed in her head. Patsy Jefferson says this when she is seventeen and William has taken her hands into his. The flesh of his soft lips had come down and patterned her knuckles in the embrace. The flicker of his sapphire eyes blinked up to her innocently and despite his age, his eyes were old and wise. It was a whisper, a breath into busy air and in syllables that managed to swim above their heads into the night sky. Maybe if her father was in the room he would’ve peered up from his book and given them a stern look. But Papa wasn’t there, it was only William and herself. 

He was smart, he was well educated and he was established. The fire flickered against his blonde hair and she swore she saw stars. It was only when he rose again and came closer that her heart pulsating violently, blood drumming in her ears. It was so innocent, the roughly sewn but delicate manner of his features and the lion-slow blinking of his condescending eyes. _I’ve burned in a thousand fires of pleasure with you._ Patsy didn’t believe that he could get any closer, but he did. Waists met, shallow hands folded on the hollow of her curved hips. His thumb pressed against her chin, another hand sliding to move her head towards his. Childishly she nearly closed her eyes and kissed him, but then his head moved towards her ear. 

“I’m sorry, Patsy,” the warm breath on the shell of her ear melted her within and she shut her eyes, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face into his chest. France didn’t appear so foreign any longer. The world rested on this scene and nothing else could of ever matter but the way his chest rose and fell against hers. 

 

______________________

 

 **“I don’t need you,”** the words fell hot and burning when they spilled off of her tongue. Martha Jefferson Randolph was thirty when she says this. It was a sunny day, the meadow awash in the afternoon glow with every bud of garden flowers igniting the scene. Her mind is tired and she spends less time acting like a woman with her elbows pointed out. There are mature lines indenting her temples and a soft sadness melting at the corner of her eyes. William has grayed over these years. His flesh is dotted with heated spots of rouge here and there like a man who is not used to being in the sun long. The fair glow of his hair has been replaced by silver with age. 

Stoic as she’ll remain, Martha will only tighten the corner of her lips as her dress chafes the bruises that dot her skin. Little flecks of amethyst flecking her peach colored skin. She is lying and William can tell because she has turned away now. Martha stalked up the garden with anger quivering in her bones and fervent energy trembling at her core. William caught her, however, reached out a hand and notwithstanding age, he still looks youthful, handsome and the dust of experience was sprinkled across his shoulders. Just as she reaches the white picket fence and Virginia spring breeze flows across her cheeks, a hand latched onto her wrist and pulled her back. 

Clumsily, she tumbles back and William catches her hips so that she’ll not fall. The trip takes the wind out of her and his eyes above her blend with the heavens above. _It could be like this_. The world, herself and him with the past resting behind them as absent and far-away as the memories will be. She feels seventeen and just as before, expects him to kiss her; but he doesn’t. He brushes the dirt off of her, the back of his silky hand dragging slowly over the front of her dress as indolently as possible. His hand is still caught on her wrist and the grass tickles her ankles. 

“What he’s doing isn’t right,” he mutters sincerely. Martha pulls her eyes off of him and stares off into the distance. For a moment, her eyes glass over but she blinks it carefully away before she catches William’s gaze once again. 

“Tom isn’t what you think,” she inhales in defense, the rosebuds filled the air and the arch of the garden flowers line the path. Her husband had a temper, Tom had experienced far too much. He carried the weight of the world upon his shoulders, not crammed into his coat pockets as William had. 

“He is especially hard on your son,” she glimpsed at him and he appeared awkward or afraid in a manner she had never yet seen him before. The most open to the atmosphere she’d ever witnessed him as if allowing her to peel back the layers of his walled soul. Vulnerable almost.

“Jeff isn’t your child,” Martha snapped, ripping herself away more forcefully. She saw his face only a last time and it wore the expression of one who is pondering all possibilities. _They could of been yours, this all could of been ours_. As she stalks away across the short grass and the rage dwindles away sooner than she’d hoped, a piece of her prayed William would race after her and catch her wrist once more. This time, it is not verbal, but she feels it painted down her back as his eyes follow her when she leaves him standing there. A pained bubble of emotion wells in her chest and she shuts her eyes as she walks. If he had caught her arm, he’d say just what he was thinking and she knew exactly what it was. 

_“I’m sorry, Patsy.”_

______________________

 

 **“Please… I need you,”** those syllables were feeble, broken and bent as each forced letter came out of her mouth. Martha is fifty-seven when she hears them leave her. She was too old to lie, too experienced to let this go. When William hears this he is frozen, transparent and fluent. It is windy and her hair brushes off of her shoulders. The bodice of her dress flaps in the gentle wind. The sky is like sandy charcoal and William still shines with the same intelligence and youth and symbols of opportunity. He rubs his hands together, shaking off his moment of weakness like lint and approaching her. An aid of confidence blew over them on the porch. When his hands meet her cheeks and his thumb rubs over her skin with a special, graceful manner, she doesn’t expect it. Even as their eyes had been locked and the cobalt continues to skip between her coffee eyes and her thin lips, she wasn’t prepared. 

That was how it was meant to be. The passion of decades collapsed upon them and he kissed her. The shape of his lips moving over the curves of her own. She feels him everywhere and on every fraction of herself. She senses him in little undiscovered corners of her hardened heart. His hands are over her neck and threaded through the back of her hair. Every fiber tingled with a magical peculiarity. Where Tom had been demanding and bitter, William was soft, rough, and filled her with every sense of reassurance. But in her long years she never felt as this, she wasn’t sure that anyone had ever felt the way she was or ever will. It was long, and she even managed to knot her nails down his back through the collar of his coat. He is still young to her, with a life ahead of him and questions twinkling behind his eyes. William Short is and always will be the up-starter she’d known in France as a teenager.

They were breathing when they eventually lept apart and his hands rested on the small over her back. Her chin hooked over his shoulder, she’d always been tall like her father. “Come to Philadelphia with me,” William said this without hesitation and his eyes shut as if scared for the answer. 

 _I want this forever_ , Martha thinks. Although she never gave a response, both William and herself have known it for years. _I’ll go wherever you will go, my love, you must only light the way for us to find it._

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @sonofhistory, I appreciate comments, don't be shy!


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